I took delivery of a Citroen C1 on 14th October 2015. All advance rentals and admin fees were paid before 6th October and proofs of ID were emailed on 6th October. I completed the initial application for finance in August 2015 and received prompt confirmation of approval.
I was contacted on 22nd October advising me that the finance approval had been withdrawn by Citroen Finance and that I need to either arrange the finance through a family member or have the vehicle collected. Is this legal?

Hi Andrew. There could be several reasons why this has happened, but often it is caused by incorrect information in your finance application, which caused it to be approved when it would otherwise have been declined (ie – either the dealer has entered incorrect information, or you have provided incorrect information).

Unfortunately, the car belongs to Citroën Finance, not to you, and they can terminate the agreement and collect their car. The T&Cs of your contract should confirm this.

Their preference would presumably be for you to arrange the finance elsewhere, as they will lose a lot of money taking the car back and selling it again as a used car. You can certainly ask them why they are taking this action, but you can’t stop it.